Reproductive Rights

Reproductive Rights

Texas has become a laboratory for bad ideas when it comes to reproductive rights. In recent years state lawmakers have passed some of the toughest anti-abortion measures in the country, essentially making the procedure almost inaccessible for many Texas women.

The Texas Freedom Network supports efforts to ensure women have access to abortion and other reproductive health care services. That access requires adequate state funding and broad availability of birth control, especially for low-income women.

The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund today is launching a new statewide campaign confronting Texas politicians who have attacked state health researchers for telling the truth about the negative impact their policies are having on women’s health care. This bold new public engagement strategy, Texas: State of Denial, aims to shed light on the war on women being waged by state politicians.

“For too long, Texans have endured tremendous political interference that has undermined the health of women and eroded access to quality health care across the state,” said TFNEF President Kathy Miller. “Now efforts by politicians to discredit and even silence health researchers represent another shocking betrayal of trust. Texans have a right to know about the harmful consequences of misguided laws their elected officials pass.”

The campaign launch comes after a top Texas health researcher left his job following harsh attacks by state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and other state officials for co-authoring a recent study on controversial changes to family planning policies in the state. The study, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in February, found that the number of Texas women obtaining… Read More

AUSTIN – Recounting the state’s central place in a decades-long battle, reproductive health care advocates in Texas today called upon the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a draconian law that undermines the court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 establishing the right to abortion. Read More

March 2 will be a historic day in the fight to ensure that Texans have full access to abortion care as protected by Roe v. Wade in 1973. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the challenge to an extreme anti-abortion law in Texas, 2013’s House Bill 2, that could determine whether the Lone Star State turns the clock back to the pre-Roe days.

The event details are below: What: Stand in support of abortion access at our joint press conference, and watch a live-stream of the rally and speakers outside the Supreme Court building in Washington. When: 9:30 a.m. – noon, Wednesday, March 2. Where: University of Texas at Austin, Texas Union Building – Quadrangle Room 3.304.

The press conference will tell the Texas story of the fight for abortion access from the Supreme Court’s Roe decision in 1973 to… Read More

UPDATE: It appears Sen. Nelson and other anti-abortion Republicans got their pound of flesh. One of the state researchers who was a co-author on the report noted below is stepping down from his job. Here’s the chilling lesson for state workers: politicians don’t want to hear the facts about how their policies are hurting women and families. And when you tell the facts, you could be forced from your job.

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Texas Republicans apparently don’t like it when facts interfere with their political jihad against abortion and women’s reproductive health care. So now they’re attacking researchers who dare to report those inconvenient facts.

Republicans and anti-abortion pressure groups have argued that shutting down Planned Parenthood’s participation in the health program has had no negative consequences. Now they’re furious that people can… Read More

Rep conducted an informal poll of all 254 clerks in Texas. 49 responded, and 47 had NOT removed their names.
That big bill “protecting” religious liberty of county clerks was addressing a problem that doesn’t exist. #txlege

This committee has moved on to religious freedom issues. Interesting report from witness representing county clerks. The issue is marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples, and a bill allowing clerks to remove their names from licenses. #txlege

Creationism is not science.
Creationism is not science.
Creationism is not science.
Creationism is not science.
Creationism is not science.
Creationism is not science.
bit.ly/2EPwDgfpic.twitter.com/DYHB…

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